#Dimitrie Cantemir

The study analyses the causes of the deposition and beheading of Saint Constantin Brâncoveanu (15 August 1714), based on domestic narrative sources — the chronicles of Radu Popescu, the Anonymous Chronicle, the accounts of Anton-Maria del Chiaro and Dimitrie Cantemir — and the Ottoman documents published by Mihai Maxim, demonstrating that the Cantacuzino family orchestrated the voivode’s downfall through intrigues, forgeries and denunciations, with the aim of seizing the rule of Wallachia.

Orthodoxy is the defining feature of the Romanian identity, as their ethnogenesis and Christianisation were concurrent processes, and the synthesis of Latin culture and Orthodoxy protected them from Slavic assimilation, heresies and denationalisation. This study analyses the role of the Church, the printing press, Christian Humanism and the theocratic conception in maintaining unity of faith, language and nation in Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania.